Ehrenberg’s theory was destroyed for ever. Granting that there were certain difficulties (since explained away) in the way of admitting the existence of real unicellular creatures, he at all events gathered an enormous amount of new and helpful information as to the nature of these soft, almost organless beings and of the slimy living matter (called sarcode or protoplasm) of which they were composed. His mind matured rapidly in these quiet days at Messina, while his æsthetic nature was plunged in admiration of the beauty of the siliceous coats. The last scruple with regard to the old story of creation fell from him like the covering of a pupa. If a naked bit of slime like the radiolarian could form from its body this glorious artistic structure, why may not man also, as he paints his pictures under the glow of Italy’s colour, be merely a natural being, of like texture to the radiolarian? And if this radiolarian had in its life built up the crystalline, rhythmic structure, why may there not be merely a difference of degree, not of kind, between the “dead” crystal and the “living” radiolarian? In May, 1860, Haeckel returned from Messina to Berlin. He brought with him splendid drawings of the perishable body of his treasures, numbers of prepared specimens, and whole bottles full of their imperishable shells. On the 17th of September, 1860, he made the first communication of his discoveries to his colleagues in the zoological section of the Scientific Congress at Königsberg. Virchow was amongst his admiring audience. On the 13th and the 20th of December in the same year Peters read a short account in the Berlin Academy of Science that drew more general attention. He set to work on a fine monograph, with splendid plates and with all his conclusions in the text. Before it was finished, however, he had a number of personal experiences and changes of mind. Gegenbaur had in the meantime been appointed Professor of Anatomy at Jena. Before he started for Italy, Haeckel had visited his friend at Jena during the celebration of the third centenary of the university. “We spent a very happy time there,” Haeckel wrote afterwards, “enjoying the beautiful prospect (from the heights of the Saale valley) and the Thuringian beef-sausages.” Now there were more serious things to discuss. Gegenbaur’s lot had once seemed to him a kind of model. Now a part of it was fulfilled: he had been to Messina. Meantime Gegenbaur had advanced a station. Haeckel wanted to follow him, and get a position at Jena. There was no such thing as a professorship of zoology or a zoological institute there, but all that might—nay, must—be changed some day. What Gegenbaur was doing left plenty of room for another chair to be set up. And to be with his best friend!